Haven’t you heard? Online reviews are killer!
What do you do when wondering where to eat tonight? How about which movie or show to watch next? What Bed & Breakfast to stay at? Which escape room to try next?
Yes, you ask Google and then read online reviews.
I mean, no one wants the dreaded buyers remorse right?
Here are some surprising (and not so surprising) statistics:
- 91 percent of people regularly read online reviews
- 97 percent of consumers read online reviews before making a buying decision or visiting a business
- Over 72 percent of consumers have more trust in a local business with positive reviews
- Consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business
With how vast the internet is and the variety of “online properties” each business has (ie. their website, social media accounts, directory listings), many owners dismiss online reviews as they think they’ll just get lost in the expanse of the internet. Wrong move.
Until now, you would ask friends & family for their opinions on accommodation, things to do or where to eat but studies show that most of us first go to Google to read online reviews.
Review management of your business is critical to its success and reviews do matter!
Your online reputation can make or break your business… as many owners worldwide are finding out daily.
Want to jump straight to a Free Trial or Demo of the platform and start gaining more reviews ASAP? Check out our Review Management services.
How to Earn Positive Reviews
Before you begin to solicit online reviews, keep in mind there’s a right way and a wrong way.
According to Google, here’s what you’re not allowed to do:
- Provide incentives for reviews. Examples: discount off of an escape room or B&B & yes, even that free desert is a no-no.
- Negative reviews of a business from its ex-employee.
- Write reviews about your own business or a business you work at.
- Compete with co-workers to solicit the most reviews.
- Write negative reviews about a competitor.
In short, you can only write online reviews for a business which you were a customer of (as long as the review was not incentivized by any means).
Use a Review Management Platform
First step is to analyze your competitors and determine which platforms they receive the majority of their reviews on.
You can simply Google their brand name, look at their “Knowledge Panel” (on the right) and Google will list the most authoritative non-Google review platforms under “Reviews from the web”.
Always aim for Google reviews primarily but here are some example niche-related platforms for a couple industries:
Escape Rooms
B&B / Bed & Breakfast
Trades / Real Estate
Just look at how many of the Google listings on the first page for Method of Escape are reviews & ratings!
Second step is to decide whether you’d like full-control, implement the Review Builder from a Review Management platform and manage it yourself or if you’d prefer someone such as myself to implement and manage it. Ahem, contact me if you’d like to use my services & platform. 😉
With this review builder comes the benefits of:
- Capture & promote your 1st party reviews. 1st party = direct reviews on your website. 3rd party = Google, TripAdvisor, etc.
- Attract and gain 3rd party reviews
- Create branded, custom email templates with which to send review requests.
- Set automated reminders for email follow-ups to be sent to your customers
- Actively monitor 100 review sites
- Instant email notifications of any new reviews (or just the negative ones)
- Review schema implemented on the 1st party review page on your website (peek at the above screenshot for examples on the methodofescape.com pages)
- Social sharing of your listed reviews
- Review rating badges to place on your site
- All kinds of regular reporting
- And so much more!
Example of the weekly recap email:
Branded and customized email templates
I usually create at least a dozen different email templates but here’s a couple to show you the options and the flow of the emails which are sent to the customer.
1. Send the first email asking for a rating:
If it was a decent rating (from your initial setup of the platform), send a second email asking for their opinion. Note: the answers from the first 2 emails will be posted on the Reviews page of your website.
The last piece of the puzzle (3rd party review. ie: Google) comes from this last email.
Review Management Tool = Amazing Investment!
Would you like more bookings / sales? A recent study shows that displaying reviews for higher-priced items (ie. hotel stays) increases conversion rates by 380 percent!
How about better rankings on Google? The testimonials page on your website, which I create as part of the Review Management tool, is viewed as fresh & unique content from your customers. Rich snippets, review schema and online reviews all add up to better rankings and better conversions.
How can you better understand and serve your customers? These online reviews and private feedback can tell you what you’re doing right and wrong.
Reply to Your Customer’s Reviews!
Now that you’re getting all those 5 star reviews flying in on the important review platforms, you need to reply to them.
- 53% of customers expect businesses to reply to their online reviews within seven days
- 41% of consumers say that brands replying to reviews makes them believe the company really cares about their customers
- 7 out of 10 consumers changed their opinion about a brand after the company replied to a review
If it’s negative feedback you’ve received through the tool, I suggest a private reply to the reviewer. This may help turn their opinion into a positive review and that will be the one they make public on 3rd party sites.
Shoutout Stephanie Smith, Program Manager at Hubble!
In Closing…
The difference in the average star rating between businesses in positions 1-3 and 7-10 in Google Local is just 0.02 stars! It’s critical you have a solid review strategy in place. You don’t want the vast majority of searchers going to a competitor because of 0.02 fewer stars, do you?
If you’d like a tool which automatically requests reviews, minimizes the number of negative reviews, pushes your awesome reviews to your website while helping improve your brand image, let me know. I’ll get you set up on a Free Trial.
It’s working for dozens of my clients and I know it’ll work for you.
More from our blog
See all posts
